


Working the Odds

by tigerbright



Category: Odd Squad (PBS Kids)
Genre: Children's TV, Gen, I'm A Doctor Not A, Pre-Canon, Something Very Odd Is Happening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 03:25:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5481638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigerbright/pseuds/tigerbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something very odd is always happening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Working the Odds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Keenir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keenir/gifts).



Otto was exasperated. Every newspaper thrown today had sprouted wings before settling gently on its doorstep.

He wasn't complaining about a little help, mind you... it was that the wings always seemed to be folded from the business section, and the irate woman before him, Ms. Viv Idli, was a stockbroker.

"I have five clients wanting to buy up juice box stocks!" she screamed at him. "How can I advise them whether to buy Low-G or Belches, if I can't read the pages?"

"Um..." Otto wanted to point out that she could as easily look it up on a computer, but she cut him off. "ODD SQUAD!"

A hedge flashed, and a uniformed girl about his own age emerged from it. "Agent Olive, Ms. Idli. What seems to be the problem?"

The woman threw up her well-manicured hands, nearly hitting Otto with her designer briefcase. "The problem, Agent Olive, is that this young man cannot deliver papers without mangling them!"

Agent Olive turned to Otto. "And what do you have to say about this accusation?"

"I don't mean to, I really don't. The papers fly themselves. Look, I'll show you." He walked down the path to the curb and pulled out a paper from the bag. "Stand aside," he warned.

As he tossed the newspaper, it spread its wings, sailing easily as a bird, and refolded itself neatly on the stoop.

Ms. Idli nodded. "I've seen your soaring broadsheets. Why do you think I called the Odd Squad and not just the neighborhood watch?"

Otto blinked. That was, in fact, what Ms. Idli had shouted. He looked at Agent Olive's badge. Huh. Odd Squad. That was new.

Ms. Idli picked up the paper and quickly turned to the stock prices. She breathed a sigh of relief. "At least it's intact this time. Heading to the office!" She jumped into a small sports car and was out of sight before Otto could blink.

Agent Olive turned her full attention on Otto.

"It's not me!" he blurted.

"You are the locus of the oddness at the moment. Walk me through your daily process."

So Otto took her back to the distribution center, re-loaded his bag, and went back to his route, continuing at the house next to Ms. Idli's. To his surprise, none of the new papers would fly.

"Interesting," Agent Olive remarked thoughtfully. "I'll meet you at the distribution center tomorrow. What time?"

"I always get there exactly at 5:45AM."

Agent Olive gave a sharp nod. "I'll be there."

===

In the morning, Otto greeted her with a small frown. "I'm not the only delivery person with this problem," he told her. He invited her to sit down in the waiting room with the others.

A man in denim overalls agreed. "For me, it's the comic strips," he said. "And they sashay, they don't fly."

A teenager in a Soundcheck t-shirt added, "It's always the sports pages for me. They grab the rest of the paper and run a touchdown to the front step."

Similar stories played out among the other three carriers.

"Six main sections, six carriers, six kinds of oddness," Agent Olive mused.

"That's kinda obvious," Otto pointed out. "Does it get you any closer to figuring out what caused it?"

"No, but it will."

"Maybe we could trade bags?" Otto suggested. "I could trade with sports, and comics can trade with metro."

"Let's make it truly random," Agent Olive said briskly. She took out a slate and made a number line that went up to six. It had no zero, though.

"But..." Otto protested.

"Zero would give us an extra line and the randomization wouldn't work," Olive explained patiently. "Now, do you have a die?"

"Uh..." Otto remembered that die was singular for dice. He sorted through his pockets and came up with several dice. Agent Olive selected a maroon cube with navy pips and examined it approvingly.

"A cube has six sides," she explained, "and we have six carriers and six sections."

Otto brightened. "And when you throw the die, you don't know which number will come up! So it's completely random!" Agent Olive nodded approvingly. "So," Otto continued, we take the first line and throw the die, and write that number on the line." He looked at Olive.

"Exactly." She leaned over the coffee table and rolled the die. "Five." She wrote a neat 5 above the first line. She rolled again and got a three, but then her third roll was a five again.

"Oh no!" the teen cried.

"No worries," Olive said briskly. She rolled again and got a six, which she wrote on the third line. Her fourth roll came up as a four, and she considered. "It would show true randomness for one person to repeat."

"True," Otto agreed, "and it could be a control for the experiment."

"Agent Oscar would like you," Olive remarked. "Right, we'll keep that as a four."

Five became one, and six became two, and the carriers lined up in the correct order to get their papers when the truck arrived.

Otto waved to Olive. "I'll report back!"

Their hypothesis was proved wrong; the carriers reported all of the same oddness as before. Olive requested a map.

"I should have seen it before," she said. "The comics walk on Vaudeville Street, the stocks fly on Bull Street, the sports pages charge to the steps on Quarterback Street, the international pages fight on Geneva Street."

"Puns?" Otto asked incredulously.

"Oddness runs on puns," Olive assured him. "Let's talk to the early morning driver. After all, the second set of papers was boring, so there must be more than one driver who brings the papers to the distribution center."

There was no doubt that the earlier driver was the culprit. He introduced himself as Nate Thelless, "and my copilot is Annie Howe," he said, beaming brightly. "Now you, young man, I'm guessing your name is John LeForce."

Olive sighed. "It isn't, but punsters are insightful," she said. She turned to the suspect. "Mr. Thelless, if you're doing this accidentally, you need to focus your powers better," she said sternly, "or Agent Oscar will be by with the Boringinator."

"And if it's not accidental?"

"We're giving you the benefit of the doubt. For now. But you can expect far harsher penalties if this continues."

Mr. Thelless sighed. "I really liked riding that porpoise."

===

Otto was more than a little surprised when Agent Olive appeared from his sofa the next day.

"Ms. O sent me to get you," she explained. "You're to be trained."

"Do I get a say in this?"

"Sure. You can continue delivering flying newspapers, or you can join an amazing agency run by kids, that investigates anything that is strange, weird, or especially, Odd." She crossed her arms and looked directly into Otto's eyes. "Our job is to put things right again. And you've shown that you know the difference between right and wrong. So come on!"

Otto followed her behind the sofa and found himself squashed into a plastic ball, falling through a tube, which suddenly ended in a large white room. The ball opened, and he found himself facing a red-haired child who seemed to be slightly younger than Olive. "Thanks, O'Malley," Olive said cheerfully.

"Ms. O says he's to go straight to Dr. O to be put into quarantine," O'Malley said.

"Right."

Quarantine turned out to be two weeks in a clear-walled room, where the air apparently contained odd-scraping particles. "You've had a severe exposure," Dr. O remarked. "But don't worry. It only hurts slightly all the time."

It did hurt a bit, so Otto distracted himself by watching Oscar's training videos. He resolved to avoid being bitten by ANYTHING, and to find the ball-swimming room.

The pizza was plentiful. Thankfully, Oksana didn't seem to follow the TV chef Mack Arell.

Olive came to visit him daily, and soon he met the redoubtable Ms. O, who gave him manuals to read. Oscar also came by, but tended to answer questions with either more questions or long rambly explanations. Or long irrelevant (though interesting) stories. Or to show off gadgets that created havoc in the infirmary, much to the annoyance of Dr. O. "You'll have to fix that, I'm a doctor, not a repairman."

At the end of his quarantine, he received his uniform, his badge, and was sent to Ms. O.

"That's better," she said. "It's very odd to have someone at Headquarters who's a kid, but not in uniform."

She turned to Olive. "Is he ready for his first case?"

Olive looked slightly doubtful, Otto thought. But she nodded. "Whatever he hasn't picked up from the videos, I'm sure he'll get in the field."

"He'd better," Ms. O said sternly. "That's a probationary badge. If it goes stale, he'll have to train with Agent Obfusco, and so will you."

Olive gulped. "I'm sure we'll be fine."

"So what are you waiting for? GO!"

**Author's Note:**

> Odd-scraping was my son's idea.


End file.
